Hana Janečková is a co-founder of the Artychoke non-profit organisation in London. She graduated from MA Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art & Design in 2011. The winner of Gilbert de Bottom Art Prize 2011 and Red Mansion Award 2012, she has exhibited internationally and is an independent writer and curator interested in experimental critical practice in international context.

*The Curator Takes Over Consultation
There is a conventional question regularly raised at art schools: what was the role and meaning of art in the past and what it is in the present. Lofty answers do not last very long; this is because art always changes regardless never-ending attempts at a permanent definition.

In the connection with the development of discourse about art and its evaluation; it is evident that a successful art school graduate is able, alongside a successful engagement with subject matter, form and technique to present his/her work and lead a confident dialogue. This particular style of a communication can be stereotypically underestimated and sometimes linked to students who allegedly by a confident expression conceal an absence of a ‘real’ content and intellectual ability.

The Curator Takes Over Consultation is designed a series of lectures and consultations with curators for students of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. The lecture is open to public and each of the each curator will introduce her/his own strategies at the beginning. The second part of the lecture will address contemporary issues that are particular to a curator’s local art scene, which may be a lack of critical discourse, biased outlook or following of one’s own interests.

The objective of two days of consultations (it is necessary to register immediately after the lecture) is to encourage students of AVU to present their art practice to representatives of a curatorial and exhibition system. Consultations will aim to facilitate an open dialogue between students and curators where a shared objective is to discuss points of intersection of their interest.